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Monday, November 29, 2004

Hey Doc

Although not as glamourous as the Pedro Martinez rumors, there was another story about the Mets this weekend that is just as important. On Saturday, the excellent Mets beat writer Adam Rubin of the Daily News reported that the team had rehired prominent doctor/modelDavid Altchek to replace their doctor Andrew Rokito.

Just before the 2002 season, the Mets auctioned the rights to be the official medical staff of the team and eventually signing a three-year deal with the New York University Hospital for Joint Diseases (NYUHJD) that paid them roughly $4 million. As a result, Altchek, the team physician for over 10 years, was let go. At time, the general manager Steve Phillips admitted that the change was at least partially motivated by profit.

"We feel that we have a stronger business relationship with this deal as well as maintaining the high quality of care for our players," Phillips said in February when he announced the switch. "There was no lack of quality care given by David Altchek."

In addition to the revenue, the Mets also received the services of the Andrew Rokito-led group from NYU Medical Center-Hospital for Joint Diseases at no cost. In return, the hospital got the exclusive right to "promote itself as the the team's official hospital" as well as "free tickets and periodic visits from players." Obviously the switch was met with skepticism and criticism from people around baseball like union officer Gene Orza, super-agent Scott Boras and several players, including fan-favorite Turk Wendell:

"These arrangements suggest the medical care is not based on a person's expertise but on the depth of his pockets," said Gene Orza, the chief operating officer of the Major League Baseball Players Association.

"It's certainly a sign of the times," Boras says of selling team physician rights. "But it's hard to believe a team might sacrifice the best possible medical care for a small amount of revenue."

"If you've got a $90 million payroll," Wendell said of the Mets, "are you going to go with the highest bidder or someone you know is the best possible doctor? No knock on those (NYU) doctors, but if you have a guy who knows the players and their (medical) history and they like him, why change?"

Faced with the criticism of subjecting their players to substandard health care in order to make a few extra dollars, the Mets went on an all out public relations "damage control." Emphazing their pledge to provide the best health care for their players had not been at all compromised by these arrengements, David Howard said the following:

"To suggest that we would place the health and well-being of our most valuable asset at risk for the sake of a sponsorship agreement is absolutely ludicrous. We have received extraordinary health care, because we did our due diligence in looking for the best possible care," Mr. Howard said of the deal with the New York University-Hospital for Joint Diseases. "At the same time, when we make a decision like this, we put an extraordinarily powerful stamp of approval on that medical entity. The health-care providers recognized this first."

After an inordinate amount of injuries over the last three years, there is no denying that the team regret ever signing that deal. Although Jose Reyes' hamstrings and Vladimir Guerrero's bad back diagnosis have received the most publicity, the problem has had even deeper consequences. Fellow Met blogger 3AM, did some research on the topic and found out by going through the MLB transactions that the Mets have had a lot of injuries in the past two years: